Craig Levein has revealed that Scott Crabbe was the worst diver he encountered while playing for Hearts.
And the ex- Tynecastle boss claimed that the strikers he played against were more interested in battling centre backs than trying to win free kicks and penalties.
The debate around diving erupted again last week after Jim Goodwin called out Celtic’s Greg Taylor for going down to win a penalty in their Premiership clash with St Mirren.
The Buddies boss wants divers ‘named and shamed’ and while Levein jokingly landed former teammate Crabbe in it, he admitted that the forwards he came up against mostly enjoyed the fight with defenders, and going down easily wasn’t at the forefront of their minds.
“Scott Crabbe was the worst, all day long. He used to dive in training!
“To be fair, I was quite fortunate to play in an era when most of the strikers you came up against wanted a competition.
“Coisty [Ally McCoist] loved a fight and a lot of the players that I played against were like that.
“I do get frustrated when I watch what’s considered to be a penalty nowadays.”
Levein shared an anecdote that perhaps have an insight into how that Hearts forward line was viewed by non-Jambos.
He told BBC Scotland: “I was at a leisure place way back when I was still playing.
“I was speaking to John Colquhoun actually and a guy gets into the sauna.
“He’s giving it ‘aw ya Hearts so-and-so’s’ - he was a Falkirk supporter - and he said ‘I hate that front line of Colquhoun, [John] Robertson and Crabbe...you kick one of them and the three of them go down!’”
